Less Than Human (2 page)

One foot rose slowly, moved forward, and descended again. Then that pendulum became the fixed point, and the other leg swung
forward. The robot took three more steps. It stood next to the bench.

Pick up the beaker.

She imagined the order as a liquid, flowing through the silicon synapses and pushing the robot irresistibly toward its goal.

Its eyes found the beaker on the bench top.

Pick up the beaker.

In her chair on the other side of the lab, Eleanor wiped sweaty palms on her trousers. The robot had to work out how to do
it by itself.

Its arm extended. The three-fingered hand opened, reached out.

The fingers would curl around the beaker, and data from its surface would pass through the haptic sensors, through the synapses
into the tapestry of artificial neural networks that determined reaction, all in an infinitesimal amount of real time. I feel,
therefore I am. I act, therefore I think…

The phone buzzed.

Eleanor spun her chair and glared at the source, the wall unit near the lab door. Not more interruptions…it was a holiday.
Why couldn’t they let her work?

It was Saturday of the Bon holiday week in mid-August, the slowest day of the year. Most Tomita Electronics staff were either
at home or visiting relatives in the country. But the blasted building sensors knew her employee microchip was in the lab.

Eleanor pushed her chair back, slowly, so as not to distract the robot, and tapped the
RECEIVE
button. The readout of the dialer’s number below the screen showed an internal line, Public Affairs.

“McGuire here.” She didn’t bother trying to sound civil.

“This is Degawa.” The screen showed a swarthy man of about thirty-five wearing, a long-sleeved white shirt in spite of the
heat. His voice sounded vaguely familiar. “Public Affairs Department,” he added unnecessarily.

She remembered Degawa. A year ago he had helped her conduct a press conference when her department failed to win a government
grant. His job was to act as a buffer between R&D departments and the rest of the world.

“We have a situation,” he said, now using formal speech. “I’ve called the division chief and the managing director, but they
won’t be able to get back to town until this evening.”

“What’s the problem?”

“There’s been a fatal accident. With one of our robots.”

Her cheeks went cold, and all she could think to say was, “Where?”

“A factory in Minato Ward. Kawanishi Metalworks. It seems advisable that you attend.” There was a sheen of sweat on Degawa’s
otherwise impassive face.

Eleanor knew how he felt. The room felt suddenly hot, despite the air-conditioning. She wiped her palms on her trousers. “But
I don’t do industrial robots now. You want Number Four Lab.”

“There’s nobody at Number Four.” Degawa’s formal verb endings had dissolved, and his voice held a hint of panic. “You worked
on this robot. Your personnel data is linked to the relevant research records.”

Degawa didn’t want responsibility for this. He expected her to waste time going out to a factory in one of the hottest parts
of the city because some idiot had ignored safety warnings … Then she felt ashamed at the thought.

“You’re the most senior staff here right now,” he said, as if that decided the matter.

There was a clunk behind her. She turned and saw the robot sweep its hand along the bench top in search of the beaker that
was rolling at its feet.

“Damn,” she said in English.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing.” She’d have to take the robot back to the beginning of the sequence. “When did it happen?”

“They think it must have been early this morning,” said Degawa. “A security robot found the body on the factory floor. It
raised the alarm; the company called an ambulance and the shop manager. The manager called his superiors, and they notified
us.”

“What about the police?”

“The manager said the police response team called an engineer. The engineer said it was clearly human error, and they logged
it as an accident. There’s still one constable there until the local station clears the scene.”

Degawa sounded smugly sure of his facts. Good that the police had finished—Eleanor didn’t want detectives staring at her while
she checked the robot.

“Was the dead man …” She would have liked to use more than the bare phrase, but couldn’t remember an alternative. It wasn’t
a word one used every day. “Was he operating the machine or trying to fix it?”

“I don’t know the details. But protocol demands that we recall the robot and issue an official message of condolence.”

The first part of that job was hers, and the second Degawa’s. She hoped she could take one look at the scene and approve the
recall; otherwise, she’d be contradicting the police report, and goodness knew what kind of protocol
that
would offend.

Degawa’s eyes met hers briefly, then glanced politely away again. “Supervisor, I realize you are probably aware of the rules,
but you will forgive me reminding you that you should not speak to the press about this accident. The company will make a
statement tomorrow.”

Eleanor tried not to let her annoyance show. “I know the rules. How soon should I go?”

“I have just ordered a taxi for you. Please send a copy of your report to this office as well as to the director’s office.”
He inclined his head at exactly the correct angle and the screen went blank.

Eleanor sighed. Degawa was right, she’d worked on industrial robots when she first came to Osaka and joined Tomita. Worked
on them with Akita, in fact. But that was fifteen years ago. And how could there have been a fatal accident if the factory
followed safety regulations? If they hadn’t, it wasn’t her company’s problem.

She’d never seen a factory accident that wasn’t due to human error. Someone had ignored barriers and warning signs. Or a maintenance
technician tried to do too much.

She picked up the beaker and paused the robot. It didn’t seem to be processing its sensory input efficiently. They had to
do something about the reactions, and quickly. On the wall above the bench, an old-fashioned paper calendar showed a red circle
drawn around next Tuesday. Her project was due to come before a budget committee that was looking for projects to ax.

The hints she got from Akita offered some prospect of development in this area, but they didn’t have enough time to go back
and redesign sensors. It was Saturday afternoon now, which didn’t even leave enough time to polish a different sequence. They’d
have to stick with the walk-and-pick up, but maybe try something easier to grasp, like a soft toy.

She patted the robot on its unwieldy head. It was just the right height to pat, about that of a five-year-old child.

“It’s not your fault.”

As Eleanor got out of the taxi a wall of heat hit her in the face. Gasping and squinting against the late-afternoon glare,
she looked around. The taxi pulled away from a gate set in a two-meter wire fence. A metal plate set in the post beside the
gate said
KAWANISHI METALWORKS INC. EST. 1954
. The whole area was full of large blocks of sprawling factories, and the air smelled thick and metallic. It smoked gold as
the sun lowered.

She rarely went outside these days, and certainly not in the heat of the day. Tomita Corporation was linked by rail to the
Amagasaki Betta, where Eleanor and most of the researchers lived. Everyone used either subway or skyway connections. She hated
being driven. It made her sweat with nervousness, even if the car was in autodrive.

The taxi honked farewell at the end of the street. The driver, released by autodrive from the irksome task of actually watching
the road, had talked to her constantly, demanding the usual personal information—where she came from, why she worked in Japan,
whether she was married, how she learned Japanese, was her red hair a natural color, why was she carrying a tool kit and hard
hat … Eleanor had exhausted her store of stock answers and was reduced to brusqueness.

In a side street opposite the factory some of Osaka’s huge homeless population camped in lines of blue vineel tents. Nobody
moved near the tents, which stood in the shade of the buildings. Everything else was gray concrete, baking in the heat. Osaka
even looked gray from a distance—gray angles stretched from horizon to horizon, fading into a gray haze broken only by the
immense, squat silhouettes of Bettas.

The town always looked gray outside the Bettas. Eleanor could remember when nearly every street in Osaka was like this—dirty,
colorless, treeless. The Great Tokyo Quake of 2006 had been a terrible thing, but life for ordinary Japanese had certainly
improved afterward. Who wouldn’t prefer to live in a temperature- and humidity-controlled environment with autocleaning facilities?
Not to mention the smart appliances. Total Interactive Environment, they called the Bettas.

Eleanor wiped sweat clumsily from her upper lip with the hand that held her hard hat and wished she was home in her Betta.
She could feel her fair skin frying.

After the Quake, the government and big business had teamed up to initiate the Building for Life Plan, or “Seikai,” as it
was commonly abbreviated, for the Japanese archipelago. No more unplanned, disaster-prone development. All Japanese would
live in safe, self-contained minitowns connected to fast transport networks. Bettas, they called the huge complexes. A Betta
Life for All. Which was fine in Tokyo, which had to be rebuilt from the sewers up anyway; but in Osaka, the Seikai plans had
not progressed as far or as comprehensively. Bettas and the new train networks coexisted uneasily with remnants of the old
city.

The Kawanishi factory gate was latched, but not locked. There was an intercom unit set on one of the gateposts, but it remained
silent when she announced herself. Inside the courtyard she could see a blue-and-white police car parked against a single-story
building, and a uniformed policeman waited at the entry. He stared at her with official impassivity but his eyes registered
every detail of her face, hair, and body.

Sometimes she thought she didn’t care, but just then it fed her frustration. People never used to stare so much. Since the
U.S. closed its borders and the European Union began to regulate foreign travel, white foreigners were as rare as when she’d
first lived in Japan as a child.

Eleanor inclined her head as much as she could be bothered in the heat. “I’m from Tomita Electronics Corporation,” she said.
“The makers of the robot involved in the accident.”

The constable’s round, red face dripped sweat as he nodded. That dark blue uniform must be stifling. “They’re expecting you.”
He opened the steel door of the building.

It was even hotter inside. Lights blazed along the ceiling, and the place stank of metal. A large poster on the wall next
to the door showed a rotund blue cartoon cat brandishing a hard hat.
Safety First Don’t Forget Your Helmet
said the speech balloon. Eleanor settled hers onto her plait obediently.

The ovenlike air was ridiculously nostalgic. Life had seemed simpler when she worked on industrial robots. It was easier to
believe such robots made a difference to people’s lives. Eleanor had worked on an assembly line when she was a student, and,
as far as she was concerned, the robots were welcome to it.

The rows of machines were silent and still. Voices echoed at the other end of the floor. That glassed-in cubicle on the wall
at the other end of the factory would be the control room. Banks of computer monitors were visible through the glass, and
two men stood talking in front of it.

One was portly and in his midforties, polo shirt and golf slacks incongruous with his hard-hat. The other was a younger man,
midtwenties, wearing stained and crumpled overalls. They watched suspiciously as she approached.

Eleanor bowed properly and proffered a business card. “My name is McGuire, of Tomita Electronics Corporation.”

Gotoba started visibly. “Eh, you can speak Japanese.”

One of these days, Eleanor thought, I’ll scream. And nobody will understand why.

“I’m the supervisor of our robotics department in the research division. The department that developed your robot.” How useful
formality could be.

The portly man took her card and bowed grudgingly. “I’m Gotoba, floor manager here. This is Sakaki, one of our maintenance
technicians.” Gotoba inclined his head at the young man in overalls. “He knew Mito. That’s the deceased,” he added, dropping
his voice.

Eleanor bowed again. “Manager, please accept our sincerest apologies.” Not that I think we did anything wrong, she was tempted
to add. “We will, of course, remove the offending machine as soon as I have examined it for our records.”

She glanced meaningfully at the tall, angular shape of the Tomita welder on the far side of the factory floor. Orange tape
stretched around its workstation.

“You’re going to examine it?” Gotoba said. He exchanged a glance with Sakaki, who looked down.

“The machine is under extended warranty,” she said. In other words, if a design flaw caused the accident, Tomita was obliged
to fix or replace it.

“If you’ll excuse me.” Eleanor indicated her tool kit, bowed again, and walked with relief toward the robot. Behind her she
heard a flurry of whispers, then Sakaki caught up with her.

“Did you handle this robot?”

Sakaki nodded. “I’m responsible for routine maintenance.”

His tilted eyes squinted tighter, as if holding in some emotion. Maybe he’d been close to the dead man. Eleanor knew she should
make a show of being more sympathetic, but she hadn’t known the dead man, and all she really wanted to do was get the initial
examination over so she could go back and finish her own work. And, dammit, she’d forgotten to phone Masao and would have
to wait till they got outside. The phone link would never work inside, with the electronic interference from the machines
plus the shield for the factory network.

“What sort of modifications have you made?” All companies would revise any specifications that didn’t exactly meet their needs,
but few of them consulted the manufacturer. “Have you adjusted the safety sensors in any way?”